


Broken Time Stopped

by Moonlit_Arrow



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Henry appears later in story, M/M, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Sammy has an older brother, minor OC for plot reasons, timer on wrist soulmate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:59:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26617834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlit_Arrow/pseuds/Moonlit_Arrow
Summary: They met in infancy, but Sammy's parents aren't too fond of the family his soulmate was born to and he's too young for it to really seal, right? They move away and tell Sammy that the timer on his wrist was just always broken, and he believes them... until he learns that Wally's timer stopped in his infancy as well.
Relationships: Wally Franks/Sammy Lawrence
Kudos: 11





	1. Part 1

They hoped they'd never learn the truth. Neither family had ever liked the other much at all, a rivalry that went back generations. So when they were both in the hospital around the same time with their babies and the soulmate timers stopped, both families were horrified.

They're first response was to separate the two and hope they could live their lives away from each other. One family stayed in town, the other moved away. One in New York, the other in California.

Growing up, he never understood the hype over the timer on people's wrists, counting the seconds until they met their soulmates. It seemed pointless, but maybe that was just his opinion since he didn't have one.

The timer on his wrist was broken when he was too young to remember, that's what his parents told him anyway. It still looked nice, fairly shiny, almost as if it was still in perfect condition. Except for the fact that he knew it wasn't, it was just broken.

Maybe he did have a soulmate, he'd never know, and really he didn't care. He loved living life his own way, not having to share it much with other people. He shared with his family a bit but that was about it. He loved being free to just play music for the rest of his life and assist his brother in his job.

His brother, however, had a working timer that was slowly counting down 'til he met the one for him, second by second. Sure enough, on the day it was meant to happen, he went to the theater to review a movie, Sammy joining him, and met a beautiful woman. Just as he met her, the timer ran out.

The two later planned a wedding and traveled up to New York to meet the rest of the family. It was only meant to be a vacation, they never thought they'd be moving back.

When he told him the plan to move back later, Sammy just stared at him. "What are you talking about?" he asked him curiously. "We've always lived here."

"No, we moved here a long time ago, you were too young to remember," he explained softly, packing some more boxes.

Sammy sat still and watched him, a pencil twirling in his fingers as a way to keep them distracted. Technically, he knew this was supposed to be a good thing, but he just couldn't feel that it was.

"Sammy," his brother began, getting his attention. "I've been thinking... there's a lot of interesting things in New York, and I mean there's a lot here, too but.... do you wanna come up to New York with us?"

He stared up at him and before he even realized what he was doing, he was nodding his head in excitement. "Can I?" he asked.

"Of course," his brother answered with a smile. "I asked mom and dad and they said it was okay. They said something about there being a lot of business places up there, maybe you could get a job, too."

Sammy listened intently and nodded. He needed to find a job anyway, there wasn't really any that interested him in LA though, at least not any with openings for music. Plus, that would be near something he wanted to see for a long time. "Can we go to Coney Island when we're up there?"

His brother laughed. "We'll see."

A few months later, they were moved into a small house in New York. Where they moved to was a bit more peaceful than Sammy had anticipated. Whenever he heard of New York, he always pictured busy and loud cities, not really peaceful towns. It was a nice place really. There were even a bunch of places to get jobs at, and a few nice theaters for his brother to critique the latest movies.

They had a lot to do before they could go to Coney Island, luckily the wedding and honeymoon had been out of the way for a little while so hopefully they could do it at some point. One of the biggest things to Sammy anyway was he needed to find a job. He was an online entertainer already, and he did get some money from that, but he felt that he wanted to get a regular job alongside it for extra stability. Then he got the note.

It came in the form of an email, asking if he was interested in writing songs for this cartoon that just started to air. He agreed and wrote a few. Then he got another email, saying his work was better than the music director they already had on staff and he was offered the job to replace him. He quickly agreed and took the job. Not long later he was the new music director for Joey Drew Studios.

There he went back to the life of listening to people rave about their soulmates and their soulmate timers. A few times he was asked about his and he had to explain about his broken timer, as he always had to. But one time it was different.

He was speaking with Wally and Susie when it was brought up, like usual. Susie had just met her soulmate and was esthetic to talk about it to everyone, Wally and Sammy got along with her already and would usually listen to anything she had to talk about. Then she asked them if either of them met theirs yet or how much longer they had to meet them.

Sammy held up his wrist to show the timer, permanently stopped at 0 seconds. "My timer broke when I was little," he explained.

"Really?" Wally asked, looking over at him. He held up his own wrist to show that it, too, was at 0 seconds. "Mine doesn't work either."

Susie stared at them both with a look of amazement. "What are the odds of two people with broken timers in one place?" she breathed. She smiled brightly with a hint of intent. "So, looks like you two have a lot in common! I'll leave you boys to talk about it~!"

With that, she walked away, going off to tell someone else.

Wally and Sammy both sat on the small stage in the music room in silence, looking down at their wrists. "Y'know," Wally began. "I don't think your timer is broken. I've been around people who've broken theirs before, and theirs is completely shattered and fritzy, yours still looks brand new."

"I thought you said you broke yours, but it still seems new as well," Sammy pointed out.

"It's just easier to tell people it's broken than to tell them the truth," Wally sighed. "I asked my parents about it before and they said I met my soulmate when I was a baby. But our families don't like each other, they moved away and left me here. I guess they're still off living a happy life somewhere, but I can't help but wonder who they were."

Sammy looked down at his own wrist quietly before finally finding words to speak. "Why would they do such a thing?" he asked in a hushed voice. He continued to stare at his wrist, wondering when his timer broke... was it broken? He stood up and jumped off the stage.

"What are you doing?" Wally asked in sudden shock.

"I'm going to ask Joey for some time off, I need to check something before my brother comes home," Sammy explained, turning to look over his shoulder at him. "If what I'm thinking is true, he's not going to be happy I went looking."

Wally just smirked. "Trouble and time off work, mind if I join?"

"Come along if you want to."

Twenty minutes later, the two had the rest of the day off and were sitting in Sammy's living room, Sammy digging through a box of photo-albums his brother had copied from the ones in their parent's house. It was odd that he copied them, but Sammy was glad he did it.

"I don't remember when my timer broke, I was told I was too young to, and I never cared but now I'm curious," he explained, pulling out one that looked about right and placing it down on the coffee table.

Wally leaned in to look at the pictures with him. Sammy started at the back of the book and studied every picture of himself. The latest picture of him was when he was five. His arm was in the photo and he could plainly tell that the timer was stopped there. He vaguely remembered that.

He kept going further and further back. Every time his wrist was in view, the timer was stopped. Every. Single. Time. Then he got to his baby pictures. The timer was stopped there, too. There was no way it was actually broken, there had never been a case where a baby had managed to damage it themselves, well, not with parents like his anyway. His parents would never allow him to do anything harmful growing up.

Then he got to the earliest pictures of himself. There was one in the hospital from after he was born. In the picture, he was reaching towards the camera a little and... the timer had a time on it. Mere hours of time.

"Wally?" he began, voice shaking a little nervously at this revelation. "What hospital were you at when you were a baby?"

Wally listed the name of the hospital casually before freezing and staring down at the photo. "It's the same one," he whispered.

Sammy flipped the page over to a picture of his birth certificate and looked back at Wally. "When were you born?"

"Six months before you, by the looks of it," Wally answered with a laugh. "Heck, yeah, I'm older!" he cheered before pausing and looking back at it. "Oh.... My parents always told me how I had gotten hurt or sick or something at six months and had to go back to the hospital for baby care... oh..."

Sammy stood up and collapsed on the couch next to him, staring into space. "My family moved to California after I was born," he explained softly, looking back down at his wrist. "This explains so much..."

"Explains what?"

The two looked up to see his brother standing in the doorway, watching them. "I thought you were still at work, Sammy," he stated.

"I thought the same of you!" Sammy replied. "I got the rest of the day off."

His brother eyed them both suspiciously before looking at the photos. "Oh... so you figured it out?"

"Yeah," Sammy answered, glaring at him. "Why didn't you ever tell me that I had already met my soulmate?! Why spend so long lying to me and trying to tell me that my timer was broken?"

"It was better if you didn't know," his brother answered. "Besides, you wouldn't like him anyway, he's-"

"Sitting right here," Wally completed the sentence for him.

"I had a right to know!" Sammy pointed out. "Besides, who are you to tell me who I would and wouldn't like?"

"I'm your older brother!"

"That doesn't change it!" Sammy cried, standing up to glare up at him more. "The point is you lied to me my entire life and kept this hidden just because you didn't approve of a baby based off their family!"

"You don't know what the Franks are like!"

"Humorous, loved by all, attractive," Wally began listing what he viewed himself and his family as. He stood up and wrapped an arm around Sammy's shoulders. "Look, it's not worth getting in a fight over. I agree with ya, but he's yer family, don't fight because of-"

"Stay out of this," Sammy muttered. But he didn't push him away or anything. In fact, he seemed to relax more.

His brother also quieted down and just stood there, watching them in shock.

"Tell ya what," Wally began. "Let's just go walk around a store or something for a while, look at some products, Susie taught that trick to me as a way to calm down after the stupid pipes burst again."

"Okay," Sammy agreed.


	2. Part 2

Months had passed since they first learned about their being soulmates. The shopping trip had calmed Sammy down, but he still spent the night in the studio instead of his room at home. After that, he calmed down around his family again and continued to live with his brother for a while longer.

The shopping trip was just the first of many dates with Wally. They did a lot of just walking around town as a way to relax after work, but sometimes they went out to lunch or dinner together.

After a few months, they decided to start looking for an apartment. It took even longer, but they were now finally moving into a nice small apartment that wasn't too far away from work.

It was a single room, the two agreeing to share a room to make it cheaper. The move went well since they didn't have much to move in with them, the entire time their families felt concerned about it though.

There was a knock at his office door before it was opened. He mentally swore that if it was someone here to use the stupid pump switch again, he was going to scream. To his surprise, he felt arms wrap around his shoulders, someone resting their chin on his head.

"How's it goin'?" Wally asked, revealing himself as the visitor.

Sammy smiled slightly at his presence, leaning into his hold a little. Being around Wally always seemed to calm things down, especially after a long day of Joey causing problems and giving him even more work to do.

"I was thinkin'," Wally began. "How about we ask Joey if we can get the rest of the day off?"

"Yes, let's," Sammy agreed, standing up and ditching his desk as fast as he could. Any excuse to get away from his desk was a good excuse.

Wally smiled and went upstairs to Joey's office with him. Surprisingly, Joey didn't argue with them at all and let them go no questions asked. That was odd, Joey almost never let anyone out earlier, he didn't even let people leave on time anymore. But he seemed genuinely pleased to let them leave though.

It was so nice to be outside the building while it was still bright for once. Here lately, they'd been going to work before the sun was up and going home after the sun had gone down.

Like how they usually had been, Sammy was letting Wally drive. They only had one car, again to save money. Overall, they didn't get paid as well as they knew they should have, so they couldn't afford another car for now.

"Wally," Sammy began. "This isn't the way home..."

"It's fine," Wally assured him. "I thought of another stop I'd like to make on the way, if that's okay with you?"

"Oh, okay then," Sammy agreed.

They pulled up to a fairly nice restaurant, nicer than McDonalds but not one you have to dress up for. Wally got out first and gestured for Sammy to join him. "C'mon!" he called.

Sammy followed him inside the building where they were promptly seated by a waitress. This was unexpected. Wait, did Wally break something and was using this as a way to make up again? "Alright, Wally," he began after the waitress left. "What's the deal?"

Wally just smirked at him. "You'll see~!"

They ordered their food and sat patiently waiting. Sammy was still a bit suspicious but Wally kept making small talk to distract him, that almost made him even more suspicious. The food arrived and they started to eat. It wasn't actually all that fancy, but it was food that neither had to cook and it tasted better than either were able to make anyway.

Finally, Wally looked at him with a half-lidded smirk and started to talk, revealing the reason they'd gone out. "So, we've been together for a while now, right?" he began.

The wording made Sammy nervous. What was he getting at? Trying to get himself out of trouble? Trying to propose? "Yeah, I guess we have."

"Do you know how long?"

Sammy froze. He was so busy dealing with his family in an attempt to get them to accept this, writing way too many songs for a cartoon (as well as doing other people's jobs as they quit, as of late. Why, Henry?), trying to maintain the apartment, basically life. He didn't pay attention to when they started dating, not that he would have remembered with how busy it had been lately.

Wally just continued to smile and a waitress walked past, handing him a bag of... something? He reached in and pulled out a card first. "Happy first anniversary of dating~!" he said.

Sammy took the card and opened it, skimming over the words with a smile. "Wally-" he began but was soon cut off.

"Wait," Wally said. "There's more." He pulled out a small gift bag and handed it to him, watching him in anticipation.

Sammy carefully opened the gift and pulled out a small box, carefully opening that, too. Inside was a simple and beautiful necklace, just a chain with a charm on it, the type of thing he used to wear when he had time to do videos online but actually well made and more fancy. "It's beautiful," he breathed.

"There's, uh- one more thing," Wally stuttered out, sounding a bit more nervous.

Here it comes, was all Sammy could think. He could only assume bad news was joining the wonder that was the evening thus far. He felt himself tense up as he watched Wally reach into the bag one last time, but he didn't see what he brought out of it. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Wally get up.

"I know this isn't really the time and place but I wasn't sure how much longer we'd have before our parents try to stop us or one of us goes crazy from our job," Wally explained, still nervous. He walked closer then dropped to a knee, pulling another small box out from behind his back and slowly opening it to reveal a silver ring with a blue gem on it. "So um.. will you.... marry me?"

The entire rest of the room seemed to freeze just as Sammy did, everyone stopping to stare in silence. And for once, he didn't care if they were watching him. He got down on the floor as well and wrapped his arms around his soulmate's shoulders in the best attempt at a hug he could manage like this. "Wally, of course," he answered, still hugging him. He felt arms wrap around him as well, Wally's happy laugh filling his ears.

Camera flashes sounded in the room amongst the loud cheering of everyone else, both the customers and the staff alike. The two pulled apart from the hug just long enough for Wally to slip the ring on Sammy's finger before the both kissed for the first time. They'd kissed each other on the cheek before but this was their first real kiss.

They separated again and someone walked up to them, prompting them both to look up. "Henry?" Sammy asked in shock.

"I asked him to come here, too, just in case I got nervous," Wally explained.

Henry just smiled and held up his phone, showing them a picture he took during the proposal. "Also because he wasn't going to be able to get an actual photographer," he added. He leaned down on their level, placing a hand on both their shoulders. "Congratulations, you two," he said.

The two shared a quick kiss again before getting up, paying for their meal, Wally leaving an extra tip to the waitress for helping him pull it off, and went back home to their apartment. That night was also the first time they actually shared the bed as well, instead of one going and sleeping on the couch while the other had the bed.

Sammy woke up once to the feeling of arms wrapped around him protectively, soft breathing in his ear. Slowly, he turned around and loosely wrapped his arms around Wally's neck, laying against his chest comfortably. Tomorrow he'd have to handle the outburst from his own family, maybe even the small outburst from Wally's, but for tonight, he didn't care.

Tonight he just wanted to stay in his arms for as long as possible and get some more sleep before work in the morning. He'd have a lot to tell Susie tomorrow. And with that thought in mind, he closed his eyes again and fell back asleep, listening to the soft, rhythmic beating of his soulmate's heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there was originally going to be the line of "At least Wally didn't snore, that was a plus" but I thought that sounded too negative to leave in. Nevertheless, I thought it was too funny to leave out.
> 
> Written in the span of three days, I think. 10/16-19/17
> 
> Thanks for reading ^-^


End file.
